Why humans will happily follow a robot messiah

A religion based on a robot god will succeed because humans tend to ‘worship supreme understanding’, experts have claimed. One researcher has said the same drive that compels people to believe in higher beings and follow religions will also work for so-called AI ‘Godheads’. Others have commented that, like religion, people will eventually rely on a ‘robot messiah’ to solve society’s problems. Last month, former Uber and Google engineer Anthony Levandowski formed the first church to follow an artificially intelligent being.

The religion, known as ‘Way of the Future’, claims our species can better itself by following the instructions of a robot that is ‘a billion times smarter than humans’. Now AI expert and lawyer John Mitchell has said humans have a tendency to ‘worship supreme understanding’, and that this also applies to AI. ‘We [believe] there must be some higher power that causes lightning, sunsets, and crashing waves – or at least speaks to the bottom of our beings, rather than ignore them as ho-hum background,’ he told Fox News. READ MORE